ABOUT TRN

Mission Statement

The goal of the Transpersonal Research Network (TRN) is to initiate and sustain networks of transpersonal researchers worldwide who wish to engage in scientific dialogue and to create transpersonal research trainings related to current and emerging research methods and projects of transpersonal, spiritual, and related interest.

The Transpersonal Research Network (TRN) organizes an annual Transpersonal Research Colloquium (TRC) to facilitate in-person networking and global exchange. The TRN liaises and collaborates with other research networks and research conferences. Over time, TRN will create online platforms for exchanging resources, ongoing research projects, links to other research networks, and online forums for scientific discussion and community building with like-minded colleagues.

Ethical Values

The Transpersonal Research Network (TRN) adheres to the following core ethical values:

(1) A Transpersonal Methodological Perspective of Ontology and Epistemology

Within our body, being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology) are intertwined. Through our body we connect with experience and the outside world. TRN recognizes the interrelatedness of the dimensions of body, mind, spirit, community, culture, nature, and cosmos and acknowledges different levels of consciousness, including altered states of consciousness. This approach aims to re-complexify and re-embody our human life world from the Cartesian split and reductionism that have dominated scientific discourse for centuries.

(2) An Inclusive Approach to Research

The goal of transpersonal research approaches is to address all aspects of human experience, including the most sensitive, exceptional, and sacred experiences, and thereby to expand the conventional framework of scientific research. Such a transpersonal conceptualization of research includes complementary, non-experimental methods that acknowledge alternative ways of knowing and of expression of research findings. The research process is assumed as relational, dialogical, intersubjective, and co-creative.

In Transforming Self and Others Through Research, Anderson and Braud (2011) proposed a transpersonal vision of research based on the African philosophy and way of life called Ubuntu, with its core expression “I am because we are, we are because I am” (p. 305). We are incomplete without others—not quite human. Such a transpersonal vision of research expands from personal growth and transformation of the individual to communal and global transformation.

(3) Towards a Culture of Sharing Understanding

This inclusive transpersonal approach to research moves us toward a world culture of sharing knowledge, information, and understanding with audiences and communities with like-minded interests. This approach constitutes an ongoing interplay of individuality and shared knowledge, of unity and diversity seen as complementary, and envisioned as form of a living ecology.

Research & Publication & Conferences

Topics of networking of the Transpersonal Research Network (TRN), include, but are not limited to, transpersonal approaches to research, epistemological and methodological considerations, studying therapeutic interventions, combining quantitative and qualitative methods effectively to support the study of transpersonal and spiritual topics, transpersonal approaches to evidence-based practice, embodied and arts-based approaches, and ontological concerns. Discussions will be initiated around ongoing research projects, potential collaborations, and clusters of research topics and specific fields of research specializations. Resources of publications will be collected and other relevant online information of contacts and events will be announced.

The TRN organizes an annual Transpersonal Research Colloquium (TRC). More details you can find at the section “TRC” on this website.